ferelah

to answer your question, depends on playstyle of your primary. If he has a habit of overextending, or jumps away now and again for specific plays the equalizer helps him to get out if that goes wrong or he needs to get back to you quickly. If the above doesn't apply, then pain train all the way.

strerror

equalizer helps you get out of situations where you normally shouldn't have been able to. Also allows for some hilarious but clutch plays (see Vic in C4C2 final) and just makes some rollouts easier in terms of healing, or if you are bad at rocketjumping. In no way on a soldier should pain train be used over equalizer

________________________"We painted the picture you want- I wanted it too".

starkington

The double capture speed that the Pain Train provides allows Soldiers to perform back-caps on unguarded capture points more effectively. This can be useful in forcing advancing enemies to abandon a push in order to save their besieged point. Soldiers using the Pain Train must be wary, however, as they become slightly more vulnerable Shotguns, Scatterguns, and Pistols.

Cole

________________________73% of the population were involved in some form of recall stabilisation program, to compensate for unquantifiable consciousness anomalies. Unlike most people, he knew exactly where he'd find the answers.

Roflcat

It's really situational, in almost all cases equalizer is better than the pain train however there are specific moments that the pain train can be really helpful, think of the pain train as you would a scout back capping. An example of it working for me:

Failing a push into granary last and re spawning early with pain train and telling my team my intentions. As enemy team pushes into mid with uber advantage I start back capping which will pull 1-2 players away, the other team sees 2x cap and assumes it's a scout (our 2nd scout hadn't revealed himself at mid yet) so the scout heading to stop the cap enters the point unsuspecting a soldier and entering a choke doorway and dying to rockets securing the point and player advantage.

The pain train is too specific to be used all the time and best used in set plays that you communicate with your team before hand.